Chapter 12
Gaheris kept his ear pressed against the door, listening to the brigades of Magog storming past. He heard a muffled sniffing coming from the other side of the door and held his breath, hoping it would just pass by like the others. He tightened his grip on his forcelance. After an eternity, it moved on.
"I did it." Harper sounded surprised. "I actually did it! Whoo-hoo!"
"Good work." Gaheris turned away from the door and examined the weapon.
It was small, about a foot long, pointed at one end. The outside was made of metal grating, and inside Gaheris could see the innocent little black box that would be their salvation.
The Nietzschean tried to raise Command, but only got static, which meant one of two things: either Dylan's comm still wasn't working, or they were all dead. "Now what?" he asked Harper.
"We can fire it from a slipfighter. Make sure it's set to detonate before it hits the slave sun. The focusing lens will..."
"Harper. Explain this all to me in plain Common a I can understand," Gaheris ordered. "Not all that tech-talk."
"Sorry. I forgot Nietzscheans can only speak in one-syllable sentences or less," Harper said sarcastically.
"I'm losing patience, Harper," Gaheris warned.
"Okay, I've seen that look on Rhade before!" Harper backed away. "It'll basically create a miniature black hole."
"Will it suck the Worldship into it?"
"Possibly. I really don't know for sure," Harper admitted. "It may only suck in swarmships, or it could devour what's left of the Terazed system."
Gaheris nodded, then paused. "What about the slipfighter that fires the missile?"
"Ah, well..." Harper hesitated. "The launching of the hotdog-"
"The 'hotdog'?"
"Ya know, it's like a hotdog: you don't know what's in it."
"Whatever."
"Anyway, the launching of the hotdog will nullify the gravitational pull the Worldship is using to block Slipstream. Right after it's fired, both the pilot and Andromeda would have to jump straight into Slipstream to escape the effects of the black hole."
"Mm-hm. You do realize the pilot would be jumping into a random portal without calcuating where they'd end up?"
Harper winced. "Yeah."
"And if the portal is opened too late, the pilot will be unable to enter Slipstream and be sucked into the black hole?"
He winced again. "Yeah."
"And the pilot would have to thread his or her way through all the swarmships before reaching the correct distance?"
"Yeah." He studied the decking between his feet.
"In that case," Gaheris grinned. "I accept."
Harper's head snapped up. "Really?"
"We don't really have that much of a choice, Harper. I'm a better pilot than you are, and we can't contact anyone else, so that's the only logical conclusion.
"How are we going to get to the Hanger?" Harper asked.
Gaheris grinned and pointed at the ceiling. "Up."
A/N: Yes, ladies and gentlemen (if there are any reading my fic) that makes only 5 more chapters left! OH, one more thing: half the stuff I put in my preview at the end of 'Echoes' never ended up in the final version, or got bumped to part II. Just so you know.
Preview of Chap13: Harper and Gaheris trying to get to the Hanger. Good luck, guys!